Set Yourself Free

June 15, 2026

Set Yourself Free

“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.”

- Lewis B. Smedes

Sometimes, the heaviest thing that you carry is not your schedule, your responsibilities, or even your uncertainty about the future.

Sometimes, it is the emotional baggage that you have not released: A disappointment. A betrayal. The conversation that you constantly replay in your mind. Intense deep self judgement.

Forgiveness does not always feel natural, and it certainly does not mean pretending something didn’t hurt. But it may be one of the most powerful ways to find peace and balance.

Forgiveness Is Not Approval

One of the biggest misunderstandings about forgiveness is that it means saying, “What happened was okay.”

It does not.

Forgiveness is not denial. It is not excusing harm. It is not reopening a door that wisdom has already told you to close. Forgiveness is the inner decision to stop letting an old wound control your present energy.

You can forgive and still have boundaries.

You can forgive and still tell the truth.

You can forgive and still choose distance.

The point is not to free someone else from accountability. The point is to free yourself from being emotionally chained to the moment that hurt you.

The Prison We Do Not Notice

Resentment often feels protective at first. It gives us a sense of control. It tells us, “I will remember this, so I never get hurt that way again.”

And for a while, that feels like wisdom.

But over time, resentment quietly changes shape. What began as protection becomes confinement. What felt like strength becomes a sentence we keep serving long after the other person has left the room.

It is like building a prison cell around a painful memory and believing that we are protecting ourselves and punishing the other person. We replay what they did. We rehearse what we should have said. We keep the evidence close, as if our suffering can somehow force the past to finally make sense.

But slowly, we realize something more painful.

They are not the one living in the cell.

We are.

We are the ones carrying the keys. We are the ones checking the locks. We are the ones returning, day after day, to the same old wound, the same old anger, the same unfinished conversation.

Forgiveness is not pretending the prison was imaginary. It is not saying that the pain was small, the betrayal harmless, or the wound undeserved.

Forgiveness occurs the moment we reclaim the emotional energy we have been giving to the past and make it available for the life we are living today.

It is the decision to open the door, release the past, and move forward.

Reclaim Your Peace

Forgiveness returns your energy to the places in your life that still need it.

It gives you back:

• Mental space, because you are no longer replaying the same story in your mind, searching for a different ending.

• Emotional steadiness, because your inner world is no longer being pulled backward by anger, resentment, and old pain.

• Agency, because you stop organizing your life around someone else’s actions.

• Presence, because you become more available to the people, opportunities, and moments that are actually in front of you.

• Peace, because your nervous system is no longer being asked to live inside a wound that belongs to the past.

• Momentum, because your future is no longer being taxed by what you cannot change.

Johns Hopkins Medicine notes that forgiveness has been associated with lower anxiety, depression, stress, blood pressure, and pain, along with better sleep and healthier relationships. The American Psychological Association similarly reports that forgiveness is linked with better mental health outcomes, including reduced anxiety and depression.

That does not mean forgiveness is simple. It means that it is essential for living your best life.

A Few True Examples

• After 27 years in prison, Nelson Mandela helped negotiate the end of apartheid and became South Africa’s first democratically elected president, choosing reconciliation over revenge as part of the country’s path forward.

• After the 2006 Nickel Mines Amish school shooting, members of the Amish community extended compassion and forgiveness toward the shooter’s family, even attending his funeral and supporting his widow and children.

• A large multi-site randomized forgiveness study involving thousands of participants across five countries found that a brief self-directed forgiveness workbook increased forgiveness and reduced symptoms of depression and anxiety.

• In Rwanda, reconciliation villages have brought together genocide survivors and perpetrators who chose to live side by side as part of a long, difficult process of healing and rebuilding trust.

The Nickel Mines story specifically stands out to me. Not because their forgiveness erased the horror of what happened. It did not. But because their response refused to let hatred become the final author of the story. Their forgiveness was not weakness. It was spiritual discipline under unbearable pressure. It reminds us that forgiveness is not always a feeling we wait for. Sometimes it is a decision we make first and then our emotions catch up.

Practice of Forgiveness

Do not force yourself to forgive everything all at once. Forgiveness is rarely a single moment where the whole burden disappears. More often, it is a practice of loosening your grip one layer at a time.

1. Name what you are carrying
   Write down the person, situation, memory, or self-judgment that keeps taking up emotional space. Be specific. You cannot release what you are not able to name.

2. Separate forgiveness from access
   Forgiveness does not always mean reconciliation. It does not require you to reopen the relationship, remove the boundary, or pretend the harm did not matter. You can forgive someone and still keep wisdom in place.

3. Let your body participate
   Take a slow walk. Breathe deeply. Unclench your jaw. Relax your hands. Let your shoulders drop. Resentment often lives in the body as much as the mind.

4. Choose one sentence of release
   Give yourself a sentence you can return to when the old story comes back:
   “I am no longer willing to let this define my peace.”
   Or:
   “I can accept what happened without carrying it forever.”

5. Reclaim one piece of your life
   Choose one small action that brings your energy back into the present. Call someone you love. Go outside. Finish one task. Do something that reminds you: my life is still happening now.

6. Forgive yourself for needing time
   Some forgiveness happens in layers. You may release one part of the pain and discover another part later. That does not mean you failed. It means healing and letting go sometimes takes time.

Moving Forward

Forgiveness is not about becoming untouched by life. It is about choosing where your emotional energy goes next.

You do not have to carry old injuries with you everywhere you go. You do not have to let yesterday keep deciding your tone, your posture, your trust, or your courage.

Release what is weighing you down.

Take back the energy that belongs to your future.

Let the moments in front of you have your full attention.

And then move forward: a little lighter, more balanced, and more at peace.

The Art of Forgiving

Lewis B. Smedes (1921–2002) was an American theologian, ethicist, author, and professor emeritus of theology and ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. He wrote widely on morality, grace, shame, and forgiveness, and is especially known for books such as Forgive and Forget and The Art of Forgiving. His work continues to resonate because he understood forgiveness not as sentimental politeness, but as a courageous act of inner liberation.

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